Funders cannot simply leave media to “other” funders to support, just because your area of focus is poverty or health. Media is a component that greatly adds to and advances the solutions to all issue areas.

As a filmmaker, arts administrator, and observer of our culture, I find myself asking: Why would anyone with knowledge of the 21st century workforce and its need for critical thinking not put media education at the forefront of educational strategy?

danah boyd is the co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society's Youth and Media Policy Working Group and examines everyday practices involving social media, with specific attention to youth participation.

This article, from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society’s Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative, discusses a new literature review in the making, where one of the goals is to understand how the challenges that youth face are modulated by variables such as immersion in digital media, access, and cognitive development.

Welcome to the Youth Media Reporter--an open access, peer-reviewed professional journal for scholars, practitioners and others who develop, organize, teach, study and support youth media practices and programs.

YMR includes research articles, descriptive case studies, brief reports from the field, and reviews of scholarship, technologies, conferences and other events related to the practices, pedagogies, and analysis of youth media.

The journal focuses particular attention on the implications of media making for empowering young people's identities, agency, voice, and civic action.